Bookworm Room

Tweet I first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in 1976, when I was in high school. In those days, the book was popular, as it has been since its first publication two-hundred years ago (January 28, 1813), but it wasn’t yet trendy. I didn’t care about trends. I fell in love — with an [...]

9 Comments »

Tweet With the publication of Jonathan Alter’s new book on the first year of the Obama administration, a lot of unsavory details are leaking out about No Drama Obama (Mr. Calm and Collected) and his crew.  We already know now that Obama refers to those Americans who oppose him as Tea Baggers, a sexually unsavory [...]

8 Comments »

Tweet If through some magical alchemy I could get some of my favorite authors to write into being the man in my next life (I’m planning on being reincarnated), the authors, in chronological order, would be:  Jane Austen, Dorothy Sayers, Georgette Heyer, Neville Shute and Linda Howard.  Do any of you have writers who create [...]

2 Comments »

Tweet ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. In times past, teachers, parents and moralists frowned upon fiction because it was not considered elevating writing.  It neither taught concrete skills nor high moral lessons.  By the 17th Century, writers started to find a way around that [...]

19 Comments »

Tweet I couldn’t resist a minute to blog about this one:  An exquisite miniature of Tom Lefroy has emerged in England.  He is the man nobody knows under his real name, but everyone knows under his immortal literary alter ego:  Fitzwilliam Darcy.  Thus, while it’s not 100% certain that he served as Jane Austen’s model [...]

5 Comments »